My trainer is holding a 6 week Rally League and tonight was the first night. It has been MONTHS since Inara has been in the building. It has also been way too long since I actually did any Rally training. So my goal tonight was just to qualify and use this as my reminder of what we need to work on. Well, out of I believe 14 dogs...we finished tied for first place with 97 points.

Just wanted to update that this week we again tied for first place in our division. Only got 91 points, but hey, first is first! She is blowing me away and we are both having a really good time with it.

Here's the video from this week - it's not pretty! All the dogs were kind of "off" this week - we decided the full moon was to blame, .

Congrats! You guys work so well together-- I love how she knows when it's standing around time and when it's time to work.

River and I are entered into Rally Advanced. I cannot believe the list of stuff we have to learn/brush-up on over the next 2.5 weeks. I'm fully expecting an NQ, but at least we'll know what we need to work on.

"In these bodies, we will live; in these bodies we will die.Where you invest your love, you invest your life." --Marcus Mumford

Advanced scares me - not the moves, but the off-leash part! The nice thing about this organization is they have 2 divisions in beginner, A & B. They use identical signs/courses, but A is on-leash and B is leash-optional. So when we get our A title (next week if we have a qualifying run!), we can move up to B. I may actually try her off-leash. This was our first week we lost points for a tight leash, but she was just sniffing, not trying to run off. So I think she can do it. It's just a matter of MY confidence!

And thanks for the compliment on us working well together - when she's on her game she is an amazing partner.

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"

Same with River-- I'm nervous about off-leash; and adv also includes heeling a figure 8 around 2 cones with food distraction on the floor...off-leash. Ugh.

I linked to the video of our RN title run in my post about Luna, and she's definitely sniffing and wandering a bit, but it FELT so much worse when it was happening. Looking at it now, it doesn't look so bad, and it certainly wasn't her best run ever. Plus staying in the hotel where the show is happening will hopefully get some of the "what's over there" jitters out of her system the night before...

"In these bodies, we will live; in these bodies we will die.Where you invest your love, you invest your life." --Marcus Mumford

I was pretty disappointed with our score of 88 points for that. She was incredibly connected with me last night, and we had a new judge. The previous judge from the last 3 weeks would have scored me probably 94 points or so. So I was kind of upset. But I shouldn't be - I'M pleased with her performance, and she earned her title. So she is now:

I'm actually contemplating an off-leash run next Tuesday as our grand finale. Over the entire 6 weeks, we've lost maybe 4 points total for tight leash. I figure I'll have a couple people stationed at the entrance and exit, but I really don't think she'll bolt. I think it's more a matter of MY confidence working her off-leash around other dogs. If I'm going to do it though, this is the safest spot to do so!

And can I just say that I totally laughed out loud about wandering around in a circle?

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"